


Emerald Anchor

by Keitmeg



Series: WinchestLove [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Affection, Episode: s08e21 The Great Escapist, Gen, Missing Scene, Protective Dean Winchester, Sick Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keitmeg/pseuds/Keitmeg
Summary: Sam and Dean go into room 7B to look for a lead that was mentioned in the records, but Sam suddenly has a lapse. Dean is there to guide him through it.





	Emerald Anchor

 

 

His brother was done with the lies, and, although Sam had tried to keep his little coughing fits and headaches a secret because the man had been dealing  with a lot, he eventually acquiesced to Dean's plea to let him in on his condition.

 

Now, he doesn’t lie through his blood-spluttered teeth. No. He comes clean about whether his head is hurting, or if he’s nauseous, heck, he even groans out loud if a dull ache pulses through him. Dean has been great handling him, he doesn’t hover like he used to towards the middle of this whole three-trial crap, and he takes a step to the back whenever he feels that Sam wants a little space to reign in his emotions or insecurities because the constant pain does make him feel vulnerable sometimes.

Sam sits there, like a confused duck, listening to Castiel’s gruffly spoken I’m-sorry-I-thought-I-was-doing-the-right-thing and Dean’s brash shove-it-up-your-ass, and it isn’t amusing because they’re best friends and he feels useless not being able to chime in. He knows that in Castiel’s mind, the reason why he upped with the angel tablet was to protect it from the likes of Naomi, but he’d lumped Dean with those feather-ass dicks, too, and it kind of hurt. But watching him getting ignored and treated like the mosquito you fan away with your hand, it made it all painful to watch, maybe even more painful than the pang tightening around his chest.

He clears his throat to put a stop to the tension, “Hey, uh, do we have a room 7B?” He asks, and feels immense relief when Dean cuts off eye-contact with Castiel and faces him, now slowly taking off his jacket.

 

“ Dude,” Sam starts after entering the darkened room in which folders on case 1138 are stored, “go easy on Cass, okay? He's one of the good guys.”

As though to double check what he’s just heard, Dean reels around, looking dumbfounded, “Dude, if anybody else -I mean anybody” -Sam looks a way for a fraction of a second when his vision swims- “pulled that kind of crap, I would stab them in their neck on principle. Why should I give him a free pass?”

True.

They aren’t as fickle as to just shrink in and take that kind of crap, but this has become a part of who Castiel is. He is struggling to overwrite all his wrongdoings, and he needs their support because they’re his only friends. 

Sam breathes out a shaky sigh and lifts his hands in defeat, “Because it’s Cass.”

Dean chucks his head to the back with his lips parted, as though he can’t even argue at this point, and then looks away, taking his flashlight out from his pocket. “What are we supposed to be looking for down here?”

Sam mimics his action, “Um, anything on case 1138.” He sheds the light at the shelves, “It was a class 5 infernal event -St. Louis, March 8, 1957.”

Dean is at the opposite side, scrutinizing the file boxes with a furrow, he forgets his curiosity and returns to Sam’s side, “Class 5 infernal event"?

“Yeah.” Sam chirps and then wanders forward into the storage room, eyes on the items lined on the shelves as Dean walks away as well, “See, the Letters have this whole rating system. The Exorcist would have been a class 2.”

“All right,” Dean stops by a shelf and spins around again, facing Sam’s broad back. “So, what makes this puppet show so special?”

“It was weird.” Sam replies immediately.

“Weird how?”

“No clue.” He says and follows Dean inside, “One of the files just had a note written in the margin about room 7B and the word ‘weird’ with with three exclamation points.”

“Good times.” Dean says on a tiny groan and presses his lips together. His eyes catch sight of a patch on the floor, like a half circle at the same time Sam finds the thing they came here for -the weird thing with three exclamation marks. 

Dean crouches a little to inspect the pattern but a small moan brings everything to a stop. He whips his head around out of habit with his eyes wide and a little, dare he say, scared. He finds Sam slowly slumping on the metal frame and letting go of the envelope in his hand.

“D-Dean,” He moans again, and closes his eyes in an attempt to escape whatever is taking over his body this time around.

There are no prompts after that as Dean races to his brother, winding his arm around Sam’s middle to sit him properly. 

No words are uttered as Sam rides out this wave of dizziness, and Dean’s hand rubbing his back in circles grounds him like nothing else can. 

Sam lowers his head and, since it’s so heavy that he can’t lift it without feeling sickening vertigo, it drops on Dean’s marble chest. Dean shifts a little so that Sam is comfortable, and it proves right when the ailing man clutches his shirt tightly, moaning into the fabric and it gets mumbled.

Dean doesn’t say anything, but neither does Sam. This isn’t the first this happens, and nor it is the second. The two of them have found a way to go through it together without any of them feeling useless what with how Sam used to reject Dean’s care. 

 

Sam only pulls away when he starts to feel the dizzy spell dissipating, and he doesn’t mind the way Dean frames his feverish nape with his palm so he wouldn’t fall backward, and then he wets his small lips. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Dean’s voice isn’t harsh anymore, and his countenance has relented but his body still looks like a pulled bowstring, just a spur and he’d let out his protectiveness on full rage. 

Sam takes a moment to make sure, because standing up and ending up taking a nosedive to the ground sucks, and then he nods, his bleary, hazel eyes on Dean’s. “Yeah.”

Dean’s hand on Sam’s nape squeezes a little in acknowledgment before he removes it, now raking it through his brother’s smooth strands, “OK,” he says, “OK,” he repeats, as though to reassure himself, and wordlessly pecks a languid kiss to Sam’s temple before lifting up altogether while pulling Sam up.

Dean’s expression stays alerted for a minute as his stare lingers on Sam’s, “come here,” he motions with his head, “Sammy, check this out.”

**Author's Note:**

> Does it deserve kudos?


End file.
